Rashford joins with charity to provide food for kids hit by coronavirus closures

Marcus Rashford has teamed up with charity FareShare to provide food for schoolkids hit by coronavirus closures.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday that he would be closing tens of thousands of schools across England, Scotland and Wales this Friday due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The closures will start this Friday afternoon, with no lessons planned once they’ve left.

And England forward Rashford – who has seen the Premier League suspended until the end of April – is keen to ensure kids who rely on school dinner still receive their meals.

He tweeted: “Guys, across the UK there are over 32,000 schools. Tomorrow all of these will close.

“Many of the children attending these schools rely on free meals, so I’ve spent the last few days talking to organisations to understand how this deficit is going to be filled.

“I wanted to understand the scale of the problem and how we can reach vulnerable children. It’s not just schools.

“It’s community centres, breakfast clubs, etc that provide the only meal many kids get each day. No child should have to worry where their next meal is coming from.

“@FareShareUK distributes food to 11,000 diff organisations across the UK reaching almost 1million people in need a week.

“Today, I am partnering with them to rework how food is distributed during the closure, with the aim that no child is missed.”

Rashford urged his 2.4m followers to help with a donation to FareShare – which can be found here.

And the Old Trafford star also asked food companies to send donations to the charity.

Rashford added: “To anyone reading who can spare a few £’s, you could make a big difference, supporting cost of delivery vans, warehouse storage and other logistics. Just £5 helps @FareShareUK provide 20 meals for kids off school.

“And to the food industry, we know it’s a challenging time, but we ask you to please send any product you can to @FareShareUK to support their efforts during the closure. (email) foodoffers@fareshare.org.uk Thanks to all the companies already involved.”